My Worldwide Collection: An Ongoing Journey

gmot - If I hadn't had so many duplicates I too would have been satisfied with a basic set. Your page looks more complete than any of mine, that's for sure.

Latest updates:

Haven't really been doing much of substance recently. Just been a lot of "things" going on requiring attention.

I have been doing some minor stamp tasks, adding items into existing albums, but just one or two stamps at a time. My biggest update came with Austria, which I posted some pictures of not too long ago. I was upgraded many used stamps as well, from the 1920's-30's, with MH copies. I also added a few better comemmoratives from the 1940's.

The main projects I've been working on have been to do a "re-mount" of St Vincent, similar to the New Zealand project, Starting on page 13, in this thread. Pretty much for the same reasons (Don't like the paper, stamp boxes too small, etc...)

I probably won't be doing the whole country in one shot, but a few pages at a time.

My other project is starting on Nicaragua. I know it's probably not on everyone's favorite list, but I love many of their stamps. Even the questionably issued ones.

I've decided to stray a bit from my usual practices of hinges for used and mounts for unused, at least for the Seebeck issues. Choosing instead to just hinge everything for that period. In doing some reading I found were reprints and suspicious issues during the early years. I realize I probably have many of the reprints )watermark sideways), and maybe even some genuine stamps, mounted on my pages, but I chose (for now) to just mount them without going to the trouble of investigate them fully. I don't think I have enough to create individual pages for all of them, at least right now.

Nicaragua, if nothing else, makes for some very colorful pages.

I was really hoping to have #1 & 2, but none of my copies come close to looking like yellowish paper. These first issues have always been some of my favorites.










Here is where things get interesting....the myriad of overprints and surcharges, with all their varieties. I don't have a great selection of these yet, so I will probably be revisiting some of these pages later on, to update and add items as I find them.



Some of the shenanigans with overprints you will find. These, as I understand it, were paid to be made by a stamp dealer. I have no idea how many varieties there are, but I left space for expansion, on this page.

The first few meaningful pages for the St Vincent re-mount project. Way too many empty pages and spaces for my liking though.

Very nice.

Spain,

I like seeing your Nicaragua stamps.

MS

Editor of Nicarao

Nicaragua Study Group

angore - Thank you!

Michael - You don't mind if I pick your brain about Nicaraguan stamps, do you? While making pages for these I am coming up on those issues that have the surcharges printed on the back, but don't really have an idea how they are commonly displayed. Would you have 2 copies of everything, so you can mount one with the front showing and one with the back?

Hey Spain...
I recently bought a Latin America box lot and there was a nice collection of Nicaragua which made my Big Blue look a lot better! There were even several each of the 2 States: Zelaya and Cabo Gracias a Dios.
Not a lot of CV there at all, but just try to find them!

Michael-- do you have any suggestions on sources or dealers that would stock the Zelaya and Cabo issues?

Great thread, BTW....have enjoyed every minute of it and hope you continue-- Ray (at 21,000 and counting in my 1840-1949 Big Blue)

Spain,

You are referring to the provisional postal, Official postal, and telegraph stamps of July 1911 through January 1912.

These stamps were printed on the backs and fronts of 1904-1905 fiscal stamps that had been printed on the fronts of circa 1890 railway ticket stamps (the red Numeral 1 and the blue Numeral 2, believed to be designating first class and second class passenger transit --there is no evidence that they ever were used as tickets -- the old literature refers to them as "coupons").

Showing both sides, even if one side is blank, would best display the aspects of the issues, and to do this would require two stamps for each one displayed.

Displaying two stamps would be best for each denomination. Folding a stamp in half on the horizontal or diagonal would be a possibility for the cheaper stamps that are easy to find, but such stamp damaging would not sit well with some.

Both sides of a stamp matter to the specialist because the the fiscal overprints can have their own varieties depending on the issue and the denomination.

Image here is of a page from the exhibit by Neal West. Here he shows the postal sides of two sheets of 20, as the stamps were overprinted and issued.

Here is another page displaying two sheets of 20. For each sheet, one stamp is folded back to show the other side. This is the same July 1911 issue shown in my previous post.

These postage overprints were applied upside down in relation to the underlying railway ticket stamp.

mac,

I see the Bluefields and Cabo handstamped / overprinted stamps regularly on ebay and the other online marketplaces. You will save a lot of time by looking there first.

The rare handstamps / overprints have been forged. Even advanced collectors disagree on what handstamp / overprint (some of the B overprints handstamps) is genuine and what is not.

The boys tell me that the B / Dpto. Zelaya on the attached closeup is a genuine B / Dpto. Zelaya.

Michael Schreiber

Editor of Nicarao
Nicaragua Study Group

My error, here corrected:

Those B are handstamped, not overprinted.

MS

Glad to see the information being posted about Nicaragua. I've bought a couple collections, plus some added on material, in the past 5 years to go with existing pages. As I continue downsizing my worldwide collection, I settled on 9 countries to populate my 4" Big Blue binder of select Latin American countries. Nicaragua is one of the 9.

Wishing for some time and energy to get back into "stamping," but the downsizing continues to take precedence. Among the remaining puzzles, what to do with a near 2 inch tall manila folder of China album pages.

love your presentation of the Revenues ... I have a boatload of French revenue stamps that I've been collecting and sorting and wondering how to mount. I think your method might be the easiest.

michaelschreiber - Thank you for the examples. Definitely gives me something to consider. Between those and the "B" stamped items, I will be needing to re-visit Nicaragua often.

Climber Steve - I find it fascinating that you are trying to find ways to downsize while I am trying to find ways to expand. Stamp collecting is a very "liquid" hobby, full of mountains and valleys.

clifhiker - Thank you! I still have a coupole batches of newly acquired Austrian/Hungarian revenues to add to those pages. Hopefully they will start to look a bit more substantial.

I've been kind of in a philatelic "dead zone", as it were, lately. I haven't really attacked much with any real purpose. I'm assuming much of it has to do with everyday life happenings piling up on me.

So mostly what I've been doing is just dragging out envelopes here and there and just seeing what's in them and if I can place a stamp or 2 in any of my albums. Just basically trying to keep the interest up.

Things are getting better now, so I can start to focus again.

Current projects I am working on:

1 - Nicaragua.
2 - St Vincent re-mount.

Projects I am planning:

1 - Updating Austrian Revenues.
2 - Revisiting Brazil (I have several new batches to wade through)
3 - Starting Australia. This will be the last major "A" country I start an album for. I've been holding off on it for a while because I wasn't sure how deep I wanted to go with the KGV heads and Roo's. But, it's looking like I will not have enough material of either, any time soon, to worry about it. So for now I will treat them likeost of the countries I've started. I will use Scott specialized and SG listings to create basic pages, with some added varieties etc...

Here are some of the other Nicaraguan pages I have done. Many of these had to be customized from the Steiner pages, to include varieties I had. I never really realized how many overprints, with varieties there were.

I also had to add spaces for those issues where the facsimile control signatures can also be found.

Fun stuff!

Enjoy.